Interactions of the human red cell membrane tyrosine kinase with heparin.

Heparin interacts with protein kinases in various ways; the different patterns of behavior of heparin towards protein kinases contributes to the characterization of these enzymes. We studied the interactions between heparin and a new type of tyrosine kinase extracted from the normal human red cell membrane. We found that heparin inhibited kinase activity by competition with ATP. Furthermore the interaction of heparin with the red cell membrane tyrosine kinase allowed us to use heparin-agarose chromatography as a step towards tyrosine kinase purification.